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Do you want to want to spend time on the other side of the world, seeing how people in developing countries live, and doing something to ‘make a difference’? Do you want to get first-hand experience of grassroots development as you start a career in international development? Volunteer Voices is a guide for the critically minded volunteer and early career development worker. It is designed to help aspiring young change-makers engage with the complicated environment of international volunteering from a hands-on perspective that can help them to benefit and contribute as much as possible from the experience. Beyond technical expertise and factual knowledge, creating change comes largely from our own mind sets and attitudes. By sharing stories, mistakes, and lessons learned in this collection of short stories, the book guides readers to reflect on their own work and how their own practice might improve. Each individual and experience is unique, and no blueprints are offered. Providing stories and concepts for reflection instead allows readers to consider how particular ideas relate to their own contexts and then to determine how to proceed. This process is crucial to the development of an effective volunteer, and this book provides practical support.

This book is essential reading for gap year students, volunteers, and early career professionals embarking on work in grassroots international development projects.

Contributing Authors Introduction Part I – Working with Yourself 1 It's not about me: mistakes from being too personally ambitious when supporting a smallagricultural businessDuncan McNicholl 2 Pursue the art of being humbly radical: my choice to try and solve the hard parts of climate change problemsMike Kang 3 Know how you expect success to feel: a time in Malawi when feeling good about work was not the same as doing good workDuncan McNicholl 4 Understand why you want to work abroad: developing a passion for social justice in a Zambian refugee campJennifer Gottesfeld 5 Persevere with intention: the tragedy of watching capable volunteers give up when things get difficultDuncan McNicholl 6 Remember your own needs: how a friend reminded me of what I had forgotten when I left Ghana to help othersSam Atiemo 7 I don't change anything alone: learning to let go of personal projects to better support othersDuncan McNicholl 8 Find the balance between giving and staying healthy: remembering to see patients as people in KenyaSanchia Jogessar 9 It should hurt a little: confronting power structures in Canada on indigenous community development issuesMike Kang 10 Understanding problems from within: experiencing discrimination in EthiopiaMegan Geldenhuys 11 Doing lifelong work: how I always needed more time to support agricultural businesses in Zambia and GhanaMina Shahid Part II – Working with Others 12 Believe that everyone can teach you something: how I overlooked the most important person in Northern MalawiDuncan McNicholl 13 Be more conscious than professional: suspending judgement and learning from sex workers in MalawiSam Atiemo 14 Perspective matters: becoming the beneficiary of an NGO sanitation projectDuncan McNicholl 15 Strive for real learning: a journey of transformation with indigenous youth in CanadaAlyssa Lindsay 16 Don't do it for glory: the frustration of optometry volunteers who wanted to do it themselves instead of supporting local systemsSanchia Jogessar 17 Offer real value: how criticizing the 'playpump' was not the same as helping people access safe waterDuncan McNicholl 18 Don't fight brick walls: how a volunteer turned a challenge into an opportunity when working with local governmentDuncan McNicholl 19 Create the space for colleagues to lead and grow: lessons learned micromanaging a tax reform project in GhanaFariya Mohiuddin 20 Find the best idea, wherever it is: listening to the wisdom of chiefs in rural MalawiDuncan McNicholl Part III – Working with Issues 21 Do good work: struggling to support a cassava flour factory in MalawiDuncan McNicholl 22 Make it last: the disappointment of a broken water filter at an earthquake survivors' campDuncan McNicholl 23 Aim for 'great': learning from agricultural investments in Ghana through ambitious goalsMark Brown 24 Choose the right time: learning when to keep my mouth shut in government policy forums in MalawiDuncan McNicholl 25 Choose the information to ignore: how more data on water pump functionality in Malawi did not answer all of our questionsDuncan McNicholl 26 Big data, big mistake: overlooking details about water access in MalawiMuthi Nhlema 27 Get to good enough: testing ways to support rural water pump repair mechanicsDuncan McNicholl 28 A story that sells: the challenge of communicating both need and the dignity of those who need helpSarah Rawson 29 Understand what is already happening: appreciating existing responsibilities of local government in MalawiDuncan McNicholl 30 Find the linkages: learning about the complexity of issues in South AfricaDuncan McNicholl 31 Learn to tell form from function: gaps between policy and practice from engineering education to national water strategiesMike Kang 32 The funding is rarely secure: how our work on livelihoods in Uganda was cut unexpectedlyTamara Baldwin 33 Know that some things can't be known: having to guess about which donors to influence in the Malawi water sectorDuncan McNicholl